


Eternal Return

by hellsinki



Series: Fallout [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: A favorite headcanon of mine, Gen, M/M, Savitar isn't a monster, Savitar's real identity revealed, he's just a man trying to get back his life, last part of Fallout series, not barry allen friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 01:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10526430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsinki/pseuds/hellsinki
Summary: Savitar visits Julian again, this time without controlling his mind. He has a plan whose success or failure heavily relies on what Julian decides to do. They are all entangled in a vicious cycle of a wretched timeline and Julian is the only one who can break the loop.





	

“Julian.” The ominous, altered voice bounces inside his skull, like a bullet’s arced trajectory, only this time the voice is not inside his head. It is coming right out of the monster himself towering over him in the middle of his living room minutes after Barry Allen had left.   
  
Julian presses his back against the wall in an attempt to remain upright, the hand holding the gun pointed at Savitar shaking noticeably. “Don’t hurt me.” He meant that as a command, with the gun and the fierce, narrowed eyes and the stiff shoulders he thought he would manage it, but it came out as a plea instead. Maybe it was the fear of what that monster could easily do to him, take over his mind and bend him to his will like a mere puppet, or the knowledge that he was completely defenseless against a speedster that called himself ‘god’, and even if he fired his gun, the bullet would never hit its target, and even if it did, it would be unable to pierce through that armor.   
  
“I am not here to hurt you. I never meant to hurt you.” He doesn’t move from his position, sensing Julian’s fear and deciding not to aggravate it any further. He sounds sincere too, which baffles Julian for all the two seconds it takes him to remember why the sight of this particular speedster strikes such an intense amount of fear into his heart.   
  
“But you did! You took control of my mind and forced me into doing things, horrible things!,” his finger, clammy with sweats, presses a little harder against the trigger. “I never gave you any permission to do that to me.”  
  
“I am sorry for what you had to go through, I truly am.” Julian’s mind reels over the realization that Savitar, of all people, was offering him apologies. “But you must know that it had to be you and no one else.”  
  
“Why? Why me?”  
  
“What do you think?” Somehow, the question catches him off-guard. Or maybe not the question itself, but the tone in which it was delivered: not taunting or derisive as one would expect, but imploring, genuine, and almost, does Julian dare think it, caring.   
  
“Because of...because of Emma,” he lowers his gun because it is pointless and his arm had started to hurt. If Savitar was here to hurt him, he would easily do so and Julian would be unable to do anything about it. “You used my vulnerability caused by her death against me to send me looking for the Philosopher’s Stone,” he says in a resigned, hollow tone, the thought of Emma digging into his mind like vengeful claws.   
  
“Wrong. Do you really think you were the only person at the time who had lost someone very dear to them and would do anything to bring them back?”  
  
Julian pushes back the image of his sister to the far end of his mind; the long, blond hair and the large blue eyes so similar to his own but softer, kinder, prettier. Her sunny smiles and comforting hugs. Julian can’t afford getting lost in nostalgia now.   
  
“Was it my money then?” Slowly, he notices that he doesn’t need the wall to support his weight. The crippling fear that the sudden appearance of Savitar had caused has been now reduced to a dull, pulsing ache, like a long line of ants moving up and down his skin. “The fact that I could afford that bloody expedition to India?” He amazes himself by sounding angry without feeling terrified.   
  
This is the first time he is having a conversation with the man that has been violating his mind for years and he is proud of himself for being able to hold his ground.   
  
“Come on Julian, you weren’t the only wealthy man with a tragic loss on his hands desperate for a way to fix things. Think of something that would be unique about you, something that nobody else in the world shares with you.”  
  
“I...I don’t know.” He scratches at his arms, feeling the itch of all the negative feelings of being lost, hurt, scared, and angry as if the ants were really marching all over his body now.    
  
“Your connection to me.”  
  
“Wha-,” he breaks off, mind reeling over the possible notion of those words. “I didn’t have any connection to you before I touched that bloody stone!”

“What makes you so sure of that, Julian?” There is a subtle shift in his voice, something akin to tenderness, and when he takes a step forward, Julian doesn’t take one back in response. As if he actually trusts him now, which is insane. Maybe, he is just resigned. 

  
“Because I _know_.”  
  
“You wouldn’t know.” There isn’t any trace of malice in his altered voice, as if he truly meant it when he said he had no intention of hurting him. At least for now. Julian’s head starts to throb as his confusion intensifies. Who is this man? What does he want?  
  
“What does that even mean?” His hand goes up to touch the left side of his head, the tips of his fingers pressing hard against a throbbing vein in his temple. He doesn’t like headaches. Headaches are inconvenient, stealing his focus and dulling the sharpness of his mind at the time when he needs them the most.   
  
Just a second of distraction later and Julian finds Savitar standing mere inches away from him, backing him against the wall. Disgruntled, he looks up. The pain in his temple spreads to the other side of his head like high waves crashing against rocks.   
  
“You wouldn’t know at the time that you and I shared a connection, something that went as far back as the moment you were born.”  
  
“I don’t…,” he pushes the pain away stubbornly, he needs to think clearly for this, he needs to _understand_. The moment he was born? “What...no.” He grabs his head into his hands as if it is about to explode. “No, no, no, no!” He screams and yanks hard at his hair. The room spins around him or is he the one spinning around? “You’re fucking with my head again. There’s no way that you...no.”  
  
“Yes,” comes the curt, but firm reply, somehow cruel in its finality.   
  
“No,” Julian almost sobs and sinks to his knees. Standing tall above him, Savitar moves his arm to remove his mask. Julian covers his face with both of his hands.   
  
He can’t face this. He simply can’t.   
  
“Julian...look at me.” If that was an order, it didn’t sound like one. Especially not in that voice that just sounded all too familiar.   
  
Julian doesn’t comply. “No.” He struggles to breathe. Has the air suddenly gone stale or is there something wrong with him? “Stop it. This is not true. You’re not...you’re not. Get away from me.”  
  
Face still covered behind his hands, he rises up to his feet and turns around to run away from this utter madness, only to be stopped by Savitar’s tight grip around his wrists, pulling his resisting body toward his and forcing his arms down.   
  
“Let go of me, goddamnit!” He spits out in anger and rising panic, squeezing his eyes shut as soon as Savitar pulls his hands away from his face.   
  
“Open your eyes, Julian.” The voice demands gently as the armor-covered hands pull at his arms, pressing them against Julian’s sides.   
  
Julian digs his feet in and leans as far back as he can, in an attempt to pull his wrists out of Savitar’s bruising grasp. It doesn’t work. “You’re messing with me. Why are you doing this? What more do you want from me?”  
  
“You can’t escape the truth by closing your eyes on it. It won’t go away. _I’m_ not going away.” The warm breath that brushes against his face freezes the blood in his veins. Savitar has finally come unmasked, his identity revealed, and yet Julian can’t bring himself to face him.   
  
“I don’t believe you.” Julian shakes his head, which doesn’t help with his dizziness and sudden urge to throw up. He is scared, he feels helpless, he is completely on his own. He thought he would never feel this way again. Not after befriending Barry and getting the Flash on his side. Not after spending almost all his time with the team at STAR Labs, foolishly hopeful that they would be his new family. Why can’t he just break free?  
  
“Then why don’t you look at me?”  
  
“Because you’re trying to trick me!” He shouts as he tries one more time to jerk his hands out of Savitar’s hold. The fingers, cold, metallic and sharp, dig into his wrists, hard enough to hurt but not to bruise.   
  
“Stop being so scared, Julian.” His voice sounds so close to him as if it is coming right from inside his head. And what does he know? Maybe it is. “Didn’t you want to feel powerful? Wasn’t that your aspiration to be able to stand up to any threat and win against anything that tries to undermine your efforts? Didn’t you want to feel brave in the face of everything that wants to cripple your resolve?”

“I’m not scared of you.” He says through clenched teeth as he ceases all of his futile struggles.If there is anything in this world he hates more than failure, it is giving up hope.  

  
Savitar pulls his body closer, in a crude imitation of an embrace. “Then why don’t you face me?”   
  
“I’m scared of what I’d become.”    
  
Slowly, Julian opens his eyes and raises his head to look at Savitar’s unmasked face. It is Julian’s blue eyes staring right back at him, much longer strands of blond hair falling into his face. The all-too-familiar shape of his mouth, now morphed into a cautious smile. He stifles the scream that wants to get out, pushes back the persisting bile, and feels the tears that he is too proud to shed slide down the back of his throat.    
  
He has had his fair share of nightmares, and yet this one is the most terrifying of them all.  _ Because it’s not a nightmare at all.  _ __  
__  
“This is a lie,” he says out loud to shut up the treacherous voice in his head. “Tell me this is a lie.” He begs and is too rattled by seeing his own face looking down at him in Savitar’s armor to feel any shame for his current pitiful state.    
  
“This is not a lie, Julian. And you don’t need it to be.”   
  
“Why?” He brings his hands to his head to tangle his fingers into his hair, only now realizing that Savitar, or rather his future self, has let go of them. “Why I’d become...this...this monster?”   
  
The concept is almost impossible for him to comprehend. That all these years he has been feeling abused and powerless and violated, blaming some evil metahuman for the ruined state of his mind, it had been he himself that was doing all the damage to his life.  __ Talk about irony. 

“I’m no monster, Julian.” One moment, Savitar is standing tall above him in that intimidating, metallic armor and in the next, there is no trace of the armor on his frame. He suddenly appears to Julian in a simple long-sleeved black shirt and black pants, looking no taller, or even that much older than Julian does. Julian’s hand flies to his forehead as another spell of pain and dizziness hits him. Vaguely he wonders if he is in shock.

“I’m only trying to get back everything that they took away from me. When the time comes, you will embrace this transformation. But I couldn't wait for that to happen; in fact, I can’t  _ allow  _ that to happen. I had to travel back in time to the point where I could actually win against them. By having you on my side.”

His hand touches Julian’s left shoulder and he flinches away. It is one thing looking at your own face worn by someone else, and quite another when that someone is actually you and has been the cause of almost all your suffering all these years.

“What happens in the future?,” he asks with brows knitted in confusion. “I’m not even a speedster. How will I become...you?” He refrains from saying  _ monster _ . The man standing before him looks nothing like one. He is of slender built and average height, with self-effacing blue eyes and unkempt blond hair. The sad, bitter smile on his face is both disarming and disconcerting. He looks doleful, almost sympathetic, in a way. He looks exactly like how Julian does, and the realization rolls heavily inside his skull like an iron ball.

“They hurt you. They betray you. They abandon you. Barry Allen wants to kill you. Only, you don’t die. You gain powers. You gain speed. You become Savitar.”

What he says doesn’t make sense to Julian at all. “Why would they want to do that to me?” Barry is his friend, they have been through so much together and somehow still came out of it in one piece. Julian has even forgiven him for forcing him into summoning Savitar and told him that he would stay. “Why would Barry want to kill me?”

The eyes of his future self take on a remorseful sheen, looking for the briefest moment as if he wished things had not happened the way they had. “Because he is mistaken about you.”

_ Misunderstanding _ ...wasn’t that the root of all of their troubles thus far? “Does this have anything to do with you?” His tone is accusatory but his heart isn’t really in it. “Is he going to kill me because he finds out you’re my future self?” Because that would make sense. It still hurt knowing Barry cared nothing for him, but what other option was there?

“Yes. He thinks if he does it before you turn into me, he can win this game.”

“Why don’t I just tell him everything, then? Surely that would stop him from doing that.”  _ From killing me _ , the thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He lost so much, sacrificed so much, to be a part of their family, for his life to have a purpose, to have value, to someone, to  _ Barry _ . His hands ball into fists. He wants to hit something. He feels the heavy gaze of Savitar on himself and looks up with pained, watery eyes. He refuses to let the tears slide, but he is hurting  _ too much _ .

Savitar gives him a sad, almost empathetic, smile.

“You did, but you couldn’t convince him. He was so scared of losing Iris that he had become single-minded about stopping you at any cost, even going so far as to kill you.”

“Why would you go after Iris?”

“Because Barry Allen was the reason Emma died.”

“No. What…” Emma died in an accident. Long before Barry had even come into Julian’s life as his lab partner in CCPD. But there was always this feeling, this nagging thought at the far end of his mind, every time he looked at Barry, something unsettling would shift in the pit of his stomach, like there was something, a mistake, a horrible, irreversible mistake, that Barry had made in regard to him, and that was why he couldn’t truly trust him. Julian had chalked it up to Barry’s nonexistent work etiquette, later to Alchemy, to the memory gaps, to Barry’s disregard for his sanity. But, maybe, it was something else all along. “How?” He is short of breath. It is difficult to focus, to make coherent sentences. If Barry was really the reason his sister had died...Julian’s nails dig viciously into the palms of his hands, tearing at the delicate skin. The last time he had felt such an intense silent rage was when he was holding Emma’s lifeless body in his arms. 

“The timeline that he created after fixing the Flashpoint caused Emma’s death. It also brought you here. In the midst of all this madness. In a world untouched by Barry Allen’s manipulations, Emma is still alive and your life is still under your own control. Everything that is happening now and will happen in the future, is all because of every single mistake that Barry Allen has made in his selfish pursuit for happiness and you are all caught up in his net like insignificant insects about to be devoured.”

“He...caused Emma’s death?” His mind is an ancient phonograph, the thought of Barry being the reason his sister died a broken record upon it, spinning and skipping back and making maddening noises inside his head. He buries his fingers into the tangle of his hair, eyes cast downward but unfocused, unseeing. All he can see is Emma’s empty gaze, the blood running down the side of her face, and all he can feel is the coldness of her small, delicate hand in his, the widening hole in his heart eating through his tissues like some acidic chemical. And the tears that never truly stopped and the scream that never got out because his throat had closed up.

He barely reacts to the hand touching his cheek, the thumb gently wiping away the tear tracks that he has just now realized were there. “I know how you’re feeling, Julian. I have lived this exact moment as you, talking to another version of Savitar who was telling me to join his side before I ended up like him, only he didn’t tell me half of the things I’m telling you now. Life has been nothing but a vicious circle for us. It’s time that we broke the loop.”

Julian lifts his head up, knitted brows, red-rimmed eyes and quivering lips. “How?”

“By doing what my past self refused to do. Join me.” He holds his hand out in a symbolic gesture, waiting for Julian to grasp it with his own.  

But Julian eyes the offering hand in distrust. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Barry may have inadvertently caused Emma’s death, but Julian isn’t really seeking revenge. All he wants is peace of mind and he knows revenge will never give him that.

“But don’t you want this nightmare to end?” The hand grabs his elbow and steers him toward a large sofa by the window. Julian goes without resisting, allows his future self to gently seat him down, and doesn’t flinch when their thighs touch. It no longer unsettles him to look at his own face and think,  _ this is Savitar. I am Savitar. _ Somehow, he feels numb to it all.

“Let me tell you what will happen if you don’t join me. Barry will find out about you being Savitar because you tell him so, in a vain hope that he will prevent you from becoming him. He promises to help you, to protect you, but he will end up betraying you. He comes to the conclusion that the only way to stop you from becoming Savitar and killing the woman he loves is by killing you before all that happens. But by killing you, he accidentally unleashes your powers that had been lying dormant in you due to your long exposure to the Philosopher’s Stone. You become Savitar after all.” Julian touches his chest exactly where his heart is and feels something buzz alongside his erratic heart beats. The man sitting next to him places his own hand on top of Julian’s, his fingers cold on Julian’s warmer skin. When he leans in close, Julian takes a deep breath and finds the scent of his own cologne on the other’s neck. It is the cologne that Emma had bought him for his seventeenth birthday and what he has been wearing ever since. It is the scent that always reminds him of her.

The other man looks at him in a way as if he knows what is going on inside Julian’s head. And why shouldn’t he? He has the stone now, he owns Julian’s mind, or anybody else’s that he wishes to invade.

“But without you as Julian beside him, Savitar fails to kill Iris and is sent into the Speed Force by Allen. There, he spends an eternity before he can find a way to connect with his past self to break free. Then the loop starts all over again.”

“I don’t want to be chained to that wretched destiny!” Julian moves away to the far end of the sofa, as if the little distance he has put between himself and his future self will somehow keep that fate from happening to him.

“I know, Julian. And I just told you how you can break loose of those shackles of time. Join me and help me defeat Allen and stop him from killing you and imprisoning me in the Speed Force. Only you have the power to change our fate.”

The words sound strangely familiar, like reverberations of another timeline, like deja vu. Julian crosses his arms across his chest, feeling a chill run down his spine. “Can we not kill Iris? She hasn’t done anything to us.”

“I wish we didn’t have to, but some actions are set in stone.” He looks regretful and sincere. Julian has no reason not to trust that look. “No matter what we desire or attempt to do, they will always keep happening, beyond our control. Either we kill Iris and escape from an eternity in the Speed Force or we fail and allow Allen to subject us to a fate worse than death.”

Julian can’t wrap his mind around the idea of being forced to kill anyone at all, let alone kind, sweet Iris that has done nothing to him except for capturing the heart and mind of the man Julian was foolish enough to fall in love with. But Julian has never held anything against Iris for that. It was his own mistake to develop feelings for a man that had his heart already set on someone else. “What if I don’t tell Barry about me becoming Savitar? Wouldn’t that stop him from trying to kill me?”

“You already did that, a million times in a million lifetimes. He will end up learning about that one way or another, whether you choose to tell him or not. He will go to the future and learn who Savitar is. I told you. Some actions are set in stone. No one has the power to change them, no one.”

“But this thing...with us killing Iris or failing to do so...is not?” Julian hugs himself tighter. He doesn’t know why he is feeling so cold and so tired under his skin, as if he is coming down off a high. 

“No. This is the only fate that we  _ can _ change. If you help me.” There is desperation in his voice, a harsh streak of pleading in the pale blue of his eyes. Julian doesn't even register that he has reached out to place a comforting hand on the other man’s arm.

“What...what do you want me to do?” He asks with uncertainty and feels lightheaded as his future self gives him a soft, grateful smile, eyes lighting up with renewed hope for a different outcome in this timeline.

Maybe this time, they could really do it. Maybe they would be able to break the loop and set themselves free. Maybe they could finally put a stop to the eternal return of this wretched timeline. Julian thinks of a healthy, happy, and thoroughly alive Emma right this moment living a peaceful life in another timeline where there is no Barry Allen to mess things up, a timeline without Savitar.

His lips twitch upward in a tentative smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of Savitar being Julian's future self, but I also wanted to depict him as a sympathetic character with logical reasons for the things he's done, not a monster hell-bent on ruining people's lives for the fun of it. I have also pictured the scene where Barry kills Julian, it actually broke my heart. He pulls a Reverse Flash on him and for a few seconds Julian is completely dead in Barry's arms before his eyes snap open and he flashes over to the other side of the room, with wide, betrayed eyes. When Barry kills Julian he also removes his future self from the timeline, but by killing Julian he creates another Savitar who has actually done nothing yet to Barry, but Barry will send him into the Speed Force to stop him from killing Iris. That's why Savitar is so bitter when he goes back in time to meet Barry. Because he didn't really deserve being killed by Barry and then imprisoned in the Speed Force when he has done nothing wrong at all.  
> Ok this note really got long, sorry. As for the ending, I have a feeling they won't be able to break the loop this time around either. Maybe in the next timeline?


End file.
